In this overview of the expanding category of ‘New Jews’, the chapter argues that they are vastly more numerous than those who make up the conventional Jewish population which numbers around 15 million. Many have converted to Judaism and embraced a Jewish identity for a plethora of reasons. The chapter points out that in Brazil, between 1970 and 2020, the number of Pentecostals grew from 6.8 million to 46.7 million. This replacement of Catholicism by evangelical Christianity is widespread elsewhere in South America, in Central America and in parts of Africa. Such a metamorphosis often leads to an adherence to Zionism and Judaism. In other locations such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and in other parts of the Pacific, this change is partly driven by poverty and neglect. The author comments that ‘coloured by local cargo cults and notions of the American style “prosperity gospel” the belief has arisen that the Jewish State has been specially chosen by the Almighty to receive boundless material prosperity and that an alliance with this rich country will bring similar bounty to the impoverished people of Papua New Guinea’.
